Sudan bombs South Sudan border area, kills three: witnesses

A SPLA soldier walks in a market destroyed in an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona near Bentiu April 23, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic By Hereward Holland

[African migrants flood Israel after perilous treks Fri, Apr 20 2012] OUTSIDE BENTIU, South Sudan (Reuters) - Sudan carried out airstrikes on South Sudan on Monday, killing three people near an oil town, residents and military officials said, three days after South Sudan pulled out of a disputed oil field.

A Reuters reporter at the scene, outside the oil town and Unity state capital Bentiu, said he saw a fighter aircraft drop two bombs near a river bridge between Bentiu and the neighboring town of Rubkona.

"I can see market stalls burning in Rubkona in the background and the body of a small child burning," he said.

Jihad and racism

Author cites

Jon Lewis, in the WADIe, v, verbandf, thinks that "Darfur is but one example of Arab racism toward non-Arabs within the broader "Arab world." The Darfur genocide, I believe, must be viewed not solely as a case of an Islamic jihad, but also as a case of Arab racism and should be seen as parallel to Saddam Hussein's genocide against Kurds and the Algerian government's repression of the Kaybles."

Mahmoud Abbaker Suleiman, "Darfur, a Crisis of Identity & Governance," (AuthorHouse, Jun 29, 2011, 380 pp.) p. 297. http://books.google.com/books?id=4CT4GfvSHYMC&pg=PA297

W. Phares also asserted that it it both:

Islamic Jihad combined with racial hate." And that it is probably one of the most lethal religious and racial war combined in contemporary times.

"Symposium: Darfur - Islam's Killing Fields," FPM, September 10, 2004. http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15026

Sudan's Omar al-Bashir steps up war rhetoric against South Sudan CBS News
April 19, 2012
(CBS/AP) JUBA, South Sudan - Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir stepped up his war-like rhetoric against South Sudan Thursday, as fighting between the two countries reportedly intensified.

Al-Bashir said in an address to a "popular defense" brigade headed to the disputed Heglig area that "Sudan will cut off the hand that harms it."

The capture of Heglig by the South Sudanese "has revived the spirit of jihad and martyrdom among the Sudanese people," he told the brigade's 2,300 men, according to the official Sudan News Agency.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57416440/sudans-omar-al-bashir-steps-up-war-rhetoric-against-south-sudan/

Darfur in conflict in the mid-1980s
– Drought and famine of 1984-85 - breakdown and migration.
– In 1987, Libya used the region as a "backdoor" into Chad.
– "Islamic Legion" and a new racial ideology ("Arabism").

In 1989, General Umar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir overthrew the government to abort a peace initiative and established the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation to rule Sudan.
The National Islamic Front, led by Dr. Hassan al Turabi, took over as the leading party.
Hyperinflation of 1978-95 wipes out Sudan's traditional middle-class.
Turabi prosecutes a vicious war in the south; reaches out with Islamic embrace in Darfur, but without real effect on development.
In 1992, declaration of Jihad in Kordofan against SPLA-led Nuba Mountains rebellion; failed effort to create Islamic state through force.
In 1998, army, militias, and starvation used in oilfield zones of Upper Nile province in southern Sudan; battle over money and power, as well
as Islam.
During 1990s, Turabi hosts Osama bin Laden.
U.S. attack on a suspect WMD production facility possibly linked to al-Qaida in Khartoum, August 1998.
In 1999, split within Islamic movement in Khartoum: President Bashir
arrests Turabi.

U.S. Policy Toward Sudan Committee on Foreign Relations U.S. Senate, September 28, 2005. http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ZoellickTestimony050928.pdf

An 'Arab Gathering' in 1986 proved to be a key event in Fur–Arab relations. Elites from Arab tribes claimed that they represented the majority in Darfur but that, as Arabs, they were being marginalised. In a famous 'Arab letter' they called on the central authorities to address this issue. There was no formal response from the government, which was taken as an implicit endorsement. Meanwhile the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit felt that the ultimate target of the Arab Alliance was to undermine their position and create ethnic division. According to one commentator: 'At one level, the Alliance was simply a political coalition that aimed to protect the interests of a disadvantaged group in western Sudan, but it also became a vehicle for a new racist ideology.'

Darfur – Livelihoods under Siege - by H Young - 2005. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADC475.pdf

... so-called al-faylaqa aWislamiya (Islamic Legion) first to Chad, and then to Sudan's northwestern region. ... For that reason, Colonel Mucammar al-Qaddafi supported the creation of the at-tagammul al-^arabi (Arab Union), a militantly racist and Pan-Arabist organization, which stressed the "c Arab" character of the province.

Hatem Elliesie, "Beiträge Zum Islamischen Recht VII: Islam und Menschenrechte." Peter Lang, Apr 13, 2010, 582 pp., p. 199 http://books.google.com/books?id=w-W9FOM9w7MC&pg=PA199

Official: Sudan bombs 3 areas in South Sudan
The Associated Press
April 23, 2012
By MICHAEL ONYIEGO

RUBKONA, South Sudan (AP) — Sudanese warplanes bombed a market and an oil field in South Sudan on Monday, killing at least two people after Sudanese ground forces had reportedly crossed into South Sudan with tanks and artillery, elevating the risk of all-out war between the two old enemies.

The international community urged Sudan and South Sudan to talk out their disputes, which include arguments over where the border lies and over ownership of oil resources.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Sudanese bombings and called on the government in Khartoum “to cease all hostilities immediately,” U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said.

Ban stressed again that the dispute cannot be solved militarily and urged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir “to stop the slide towards further confrontation and ... return to dialogue as a matter of urgency,” the spokesman said.

But al-Bashir vowed Monday to press ahead with his military campaign until all southern troops or affiliated forces are chased out of the north.

The bombs fell from two MiG 29 jets onto Rubkona’s market with a whistling sound, turning stalls where food and other household items are sold into fiery heaps of twisted metal. The burned body of the boy lay flat on his back near the center of the blast site, his hand clutching at the sky.

South Sudan military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said two were killed in that attack and nine wounded.

Aguer said Antonov bombers accompanied by MiG 29 jets also bombed Abiemnom in Unity State and the Unity State oil field. He said Abiemnom is a two-hour drive from Rubkona. Amid poor communications, the extent of damage at the oil field was not immediately known, nor whether there were casualties. Fighting between ground troops, which started Sunday, was still ongoing in Panakuac, Laloba and Teshwin, Aguer said.

In Rubkona, trucks packed with South Sudanese troops sped off in the direction where the bombs landed as the soldiers fired at the Sudanese jets.

“The bombing amounts to a declaration of war,” said Maj. Gen. Mac Paul, the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence for South Sudan.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday the U.S. strongly condemns Sudan’s military incursion into South Sudan, and called for the immediate halt of aerial and artillery bombardment in South Sudan.

“We recognize the right of South Sudan to self-defense and urge South Sudan to exercise restraint in its reaction to Sudan’s attack in Unity State,” she said.

Sudanese armed forces launched an attack Sunday more than six miles (nine kilometers) inside South Sudan’s border, even though the south announced on Friday it was pulling its troops from the disputed oil town of Heglig to avoid an all-out war. South Sudan had invaded Heglig earlier this month, saying it belonged to the south.

Al-Bashir visited Heglig on Monday to inspect the damage, according to the official Sudanese news agency.

The president told a mobile army contingent based in Heglig to be ready to repulse any aggression by the southern troops. He said “mobilization” will continue “against any aggression on our pure land, and until South Kordofan and Blue Nile are rid of the remnants of the SPLA or rebels supported by the government in the south.”

In a fiery speech to a rally Friday after he declared the liberation of Heglig, al-Bashir said there will be no negotiations with the “poisonous insects” the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. At the time he also said, he would never allow South Sudanese oil to pass through Sudan “even if they give us half the proceeds.”

South Sudan’s government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin said northern forces were “taking advantage of our withdrawal from Heglig to bomb us.”

Paul said two MiG 29 jets belonging to Sudan dropped three bombs on Monday, two of which landed near a bridge that connects Bentiu, the capital of Unity State and Rubkona, another town.

It was not the first time Sudan has targeted the bridge between Bentiu and Rubkona. Two Sukhoi fighters dropped bombs within 100 meters (yards) of the same bridge earlier this month.

Sudan and South Sudan, the world’s newest country, have been drawing closer to war in recent months over the sharing of oil revenues and a disputed border.

On Saturday night, a Muslim mob burned a Catholic church in Sudan frequented mostly by South Sudanese. The church in Khartoum’s Al-Jiraif district was built on a disputed plot of land, but the attack appeared to be part of the fallout from ongoing hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan.

Paul said late Sunday that South Sudan is building up its forces because they think Sudan is also doing the same.

The international community, led by the U.S., has called for the two countries to stop all military actions against each other and restart negotiations to solve their disputes.

President Barack Obama on Friday asked the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan to resume negotiations and said that conflict is not inevitable.

African Union-mediated talks between the two countries recently broke down in Ethiopia. The African Union on Sunday called on Sudan and South Sudan to end “senseless fighting.”

The European Union in a statement on Monday also urged Sudan and South Sudan to end their armed confrontation and negotiate. The EU welcomed South Sudan’s decision to withdraw its troops from neighboring Sudan’s oil-rich town of Heglig and warned the government not to mount any more attacks.

It also called on Sudan to refrain from attacking the withdrawing forces and cease aerial bombardment of South Sudan.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in July last year after an independence vote, the culmination of a 2005 peace treaty that ended decades of war that killed more than 2 million people.

Associated Press writer Mohamed Saeed in Khartoum, Sudan, contributed to this report.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iEIXrMZJfwwRufhOeerYamloOGfQ?docId=84337efd28834896bdbf73a2e72cf961

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